New guidelines on how police in British Columbia will handle open drug use will be officially delivered to front-line officers this Friday, May 10.

Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth says the guidelines will suggest that people caught using drugs publicly will be asked to “move along,” but notes police will have the ability to seize their drugs, as well as arrest and recommend charges against someone if they’re “aggressive or obnoxious.”

“Police will have the discretion they’ve always had,” Farnworth told Radio NL. “Police have made it clear that you can’t arrest your way our of this. This is a health problem. That is why the changes that we made for example don’t apply in terms of an overdose prevention site or in a treatment facility.”

“If someone is being aggressive or obnoxious or whatever, police have the ability to seize their drugs and in exceptional circumstances charge them.”

The new guidelines come as public drug use is illegal in B.C. once again after the federal government granted the province’s request to scale back its drug decriminalization pilot.

The change represents a major policy climbdown for the provincial NDP government more than a year into the three-year pilot program with Ottawa that is aimed at tackling the deadly overdose crisis.

Addiction remains a health matter, not a criminal one, Farnworth said, adding “that doesn’t mean anything goes.”

“Parks and beaches have to be safe and welcoming for families, the doorways of small businesses have to be free for customers, and hospitals have to be places where people can work and get care safely,” Farnworth said.

Farnworth told Radio NL he has already written to BC’s Chiefs of Police to detail the new guidelines to them.